New NES Anybody?

December 30, 2004, 05:18

I was bored during a rehearsal and I showed a friend of mine the Hellenenic NES here, and he really like the idea. Basically I have recruited possibly two new NESers who would be consitent posters, and can actually appreciate the a good NES. How many people would be interested in starting another NES, what time period, what area of the globe. I think Pangea would be different, but honestly I liek the idea of altering history more.

I don't really care about time period, but I'd rather stay away from early America. The European and Mediterranean maps I think are best, becasue we all learn about European, and ancient History which covers most of those areas.

Lysistrata: It comes down to this: Only we women can save Greece.
Kalonike: Only we women? Poor Greece!

I being the person Bipolarbear showed the NES to in rehearsal, I'm here and ready to go. I agree that the Mediterranean and European maps would probably be the most fun, maybe we could set it during the fall of the Roman Empire, with Rome as an NPC and maybe Byzantium an NPC as well.

"Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock
phasers on the Heffalump. Piglet, meet me in transporter room
three. Christopher Robin, you have the bridge."

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Personally I think feudal Japan would be fun, but I'm fine with a fall of Rome type scenario. Would we be barbarians or other nations of the time?

I hope this gets farther than the early US one.

Edit: On second though feudal Japan doesn't sound so good. But in the spirit of twisting history how about many civil wars occur in Rome/Byzantine and it is divided into X number of parts, with one of them being an NPC while the rest are humans. Extra humans would control barbarians and other nations. I think having Rome/Byzantine split into 3 pieces would work well.

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I'm not into fuedal Japan so much, no room for expansion should the game get too big. I figured on positioning Rome as an NPC that's basically ripe for looting, and players as different barbarians (the Goths are always around and the Huns come in too). We could also bring in Persia, they're always around, and the Berbers in Northern Africa, or is that anachronistic? I know any Islamic nations would be, but the Berbers would have existed, just been some other religion or atheists. There's always a million little barbarian tribes like the Parthians to be obnoxious NPC armies, and we could even drag the Brittanic tribes into it as another human faction. Who would have been in Spain at that point? I think this would be too early for the Holy Roman Empire, but I'm not sure about that. Leave Byzantium as a human controlled, and.... I don't know, but I'll do some research if people are interested in a Fall of Rome scenario. Honestly, I'm up for anything pre-Reniseance (which I'm sure I misspelled). If we do a Fall of Rome scenario, would we find some single event to alter or just take history as it is and go from there?

If we really feel like changing history, maybe a scenario where Ceasar was not assainated would be cool. Athough that seems to me like it would be really, really one-sided in favor of Rome, so maybe not.

Edit: One more possibility: Early, early America- say 1521? In reality, on June 30, 1521, Hernan Cortez's troops were driven out of the Aztec capital Tenochitlan, with massive Spanish casualties, an event still remembered as "La Noche Triste," the Night of Sorrow. What if we assume that Cortez was killed, and the Spanish fled back to Cuba? The Aztecs were not nessecarily the strongest tribe in the region, they were merely a member of a three-way alliance that had many enemies. We could see how the Aztecs and other Central American tribes would deal with each other with the sudden introduction of steel, gunpowder, and cavalry. The Spanish could be NPC, it'd be unfair to have them human controlled, and if we got really far, we could even encounter the Inca in the south, and maybe the North American Indians, say the Apache or the Souix or even the Iroquois league. The more I think about that one, the more fun it sounds.

Edit: I can't get the Aztec idea out of my head. Keep the Spaniards around as NPCs, to trade with. Some of the Aztec's neighbors were already experimenting with bronze when the Spaniards came, and with the Spaniards around steel would come quickly. Even without gunpowder or cavalry, the Aztec's (and their neighbors, for that matter) possesion of steel would turn the tide drastically in their favor, so we can trade with the Spaniards for this sort of thing. Maybe we can even drag religion into this, I'm sure the Spaniards would be interested in converting the vast hordes of natives, which could surely whip up native unrest if their rulers convert. The only things I'm finding wrong with this idea is that information about the Aztecs and their neighbors is limited, so this may be a ***** to get started. Also the names are near unpronounceable. Finally, we have to deal with smallpox, which could really screw things in favor of the Spanish after a while. Or maybe we should just assume that smallpox is balanced by American diseases messing with the Spanish. One more thing- Cortez burned his ships after landing so his soldiers couldn't leave, but a second shipload of Spaniards came over at one point; if that was after La Noche Triste, we can assume that the Spaniards could have by capturing their ships. Anyway, last edit, I swear.

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Anyway, whatever era we decide on, how are we going to have this work? I read through the Advanced Hellenistic NES, and on the whole I thought it was excellent. The only problem I had was with the army groupings. To really follow what's going on, I had to keep refering back to older posts to figure out what was in each army. I did like the system of specialized troops and the fixed economy. Maybe we could just say "Parthia moves 3,500 cavalry archers and 2,000 light cavalry from Constantinople to Jerusalem," rather than the confusing "Parthia moves the Red Army to Jerusalem." What's the Red Army? The specific troop movement seems simpler to me, and might reduce some stress on the mod.
The other thing I'm wondering is what level of stupidity will we tolerate? I propose that we allow irrelavent absurdities like calling something the "Morgan Freeman Alliance" but prohibit the sudden raising of billions of troops. Basically, anything you say can be absurd, but anything you do must be realistic. Or at least vaguely realistic.

"Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock
phasers on the Heffalump. Piglet, meet me in transporter room
three. Christopher Robin, you have the bridge."

Comment

I like your Mesoamerican idea. One of the main considerations that plagues us if we calculate wrong, is what degree of abstraction we want to have? As you said, the less specific something is, the harder to go over it after the fact--but it probably also makes it easier to do in the first place. "Red Army" is a lot simpler to keep track of than "so many infantry, cavalry, artillery, supply carts, et al." But ambiguities can create contentions. I find that the more abstracted the ruleset is, the more people tend to focus on the NES as a story, a chance for description and creation, rather than being preoccupied with the ruleset. It's a tradeoff. I think this scenario could very well work either way.

Those walls are absent of glory as they always have been. The people of tents will inherit this land.

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Applecider has some very cool ideas, but I like GC’s Rome and Japan too. The conquest scenario as an example puts 8 players struggling over finite resources, that is a good start. I also agree with foolish that we should not get to caught up in quantifying any of the rules, but bipolarbear is right, we must have a mod.

So basically I just wanted to post some happy thoughts to get this thread on my list and let you know I’m in.

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So it looks like we're going to have a lot of people, good to see you all still thirst for control of the world.
I'm really only up for modding if nobody else wants to do, but I feel obliged to as it is my idea to start an NES. I've jsut never modded before, and so I am unsure about how successful the NES may be. That, and I can't guarnatee thta I will be here to post every day, so we would have to do turns on a weekly, or every week and a half basis.
I think it would be fun to do somehting in Asia, not necessarliy Japan though, maybe we could focus more on the Indo-China area, and then we could go with Eastern, nad South Western expansion. As for era, I'd definitely say something kind of like feudal if we were to attempt this.
I like the idea of doing the "after the fall of Rome scenario" but expanding the map to include Europe also.